Bit-error-rate performance dependence on pump and signal powers of the wavelength converter based on FWM in semiconductor optical amplifiers

The influence of input pump and signal powers on the converted optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR), intersymbol interference (ISI), and bit-error-rate (BER) performance of the wavelength converter based on four-wave mixing (FWM) in semiconductor optical amplifiers is presented. The results of BER measurement show that there exists a tradeoff between maximizing OSNR and minimizing ISI. The minimum power penalty less than 1 dB is obtained by optimizing the input pump and signal powers.